Make American Soccer Great Again

Tom Burns

16 teams, 8 teams make the bracket. 2 from each group. The obvious favorites, Argentina at (+185) and Brazil at (+450) are going to be givens in the bracket. USA are in a group with Colombia, Costa Rica and Paraguay. We are expected to make it out of the group and if we donít, expect big changes coming to the national team including a new head coach. With that being said, I see us making it out of this group despite our opening game loss to Colombia. USA is a part of Group A and right now, I only see us getting the runner-up position to advance out considering we already lose out the head to head tie to Colombia. That puts us in the position to play the winner of Group B who currently holds Peru, Brazil, Ecuador and Haiti. .

Peru and Brazil are tied right now at the top with their head to head to still needed to be played. I fully expect Brazil to win or at least tie Peru to win out the Group. If a tie occurs and Ecuador destroys Haiti by at least 6 goals like Brazil did, then the USA could get lucky and end up playing Ecuador in the first round. Or Peru can just beat Brazil and Ecuador wins and they both send Brazil home. Both of those scenarios are slim as me finding some six figure dime piece to wife up within the next 5 years so I am not getting my hopes up. With all that being said, The USA need a strong performance against Paraguay in order to have their confidence and pace high for a blazing Brazilian team. This is a tough quarter finals draw but if we want to run with the big dogs, we got to stop pissing like a puppy and get off the front porch and beat them. This is a perfect opportunity to make a solidifying statement that the United States can play with the best in the world. .

IF the US pull of win against Brazil, they should be able to handle the winner of either Ecuador or Peru, whichever other one comes from Group B and Colombia. A rematch with the Colombians would be nice and would definitely send us to the finals with much needed fire in our belly. There we would most likely run into Argentina but my dark horse pick is Mexico to meet us in the finals. Now this is all contingent on IF the US can beat Brazil. I know Vershel is a betting man and my advice to him would be to hedge his bet if he is betting on USA. .

To say the least, I am ALL IN as the Bills are with letting Rob and Rex Ryan run wild in Buffalo with their team and I think we have the dogs in Dempsey, Yeldin and Cameron to run with Brazil and pull out a 2-1 or 1-1 PK win. My players that NEED to have a great game in order for us to beat Brazil are Michael Bradley aka the QB who needs to act like 2012 RG3 instead of 2013 and Gysai Zardes on the wing who has the speed and athleticism of the West Coast Cali Reggie Bush to do some real damage to fast pace backs of Brazil. It is time to stop dreaming about becoming a world powerhouse and start doing it and we do it by winning the damn Copa America on our own damn soil. Burns out.